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Kevin Jacobson

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What do you think is the biggest technological challenge the human race will face in the next 30 years?

I see a lot of things wrong with humanity and I just want another persons input.

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    Victor Donoso

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    Jun 28 2012: @Michael Hal,l I think the whole point of birth control is exactly reducing the population. I don't think that would be a problem and if you think about your children's future the resources would be more than enough for a decreasingly lower population. To my thinking, it's sort of a brutal measure, but it makes a lot of sense, even though I would love to have a second kid.
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      Ata Shirazi

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      Jun 28 2012: Dear Victor
      The problem of birth control is not kind of easy technical problem which can be tackled effortlessly. Indeed it is an intricate problem which is related to culture, politics and strategic issues. In third world countries people tend to have a dozen children because they think of a child as pension insurance. In developed countries governments encourage civilians to have more child due to strategic and politic reasons. In developing countries population explosions recur each 30 years and it is seemingly impossible to avert. So you can see the birth control problem is not an easy one to solve.
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        Victor Donoso

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        Jun 28 2012: I agree, it's not easy. But nature is (normally) self-regulating. One of the guys in this thread already mentioned that in big cities it's very common that people do not want children until a very advanced stage in their lives (after 30?) because professional and self-development are considered "more important" in big cities. Recently I noticed there's an area in Santiago (where I live) which is some sort of an industrial complex and you cannot see anything that remembers you of children like parks or children-oriented stores. I believe this affects your way of thinking after spending most of your day working in this area. I believe this is very sad, because children truly give sense to everything you do, but I also think less crowded places means a better quality of life. I think a good challenge is to balance whatever we do today so our species will have a better tomorrow. Isn't this the whole point of the discussion?
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          Ata Shirazi

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          Jun 28 2012: As I mentioned in developed countries and big cities the general trend is towards having a very small family in middle age. But it is not whole the picture and governments of this countries strive to compensate through immigration. In the other parts of the world people deal with more serious economic and social problems and don't pay attention to population growth adequately.
          Briefly we cannot be very optimistic about have less population in the future.
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        Victor Donoso

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        Jun 28 2012: And yeah, all problems are difficult to solve. I think solving difficult stuff it's the purpose of studying and working. I take it as "very motivational".

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